BONGO, a tribe of Nilotic negroes, also known as DOR or DERAN, probably related to the Zande tribes of the Welle district, inhabiting the south-west portion of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, Sudan. The Bongo lived in countless little independent and peace ful communities. Their huts are well built, and sometimes 24f t. high. The Bongo are a race of medium height, inclined to be thick-set, with a red-brown complexion and black hair. Schwein furth declares their heads to be very round. The women incline to steatopygia in later life, and this with the tail of bast which they wore, gave them, as they walked, the appearance of "dancing baboons." The Bongo men formerly wore only a loin-cloth, and many dozen iron rings on the arms (arranged to form a sort of armour), while the women had simply a girdle, to which was attached a tuft of grass. Both sexes now largely use cotton cloth as dresses. The tribal ornaments consist of nails or plugs which are passed through the lower lip. The women often wear a disk several inches in diameter in this fashion, together with a ring or a bit of straw in the upper lip, straws in the alae of the nostrils, and a ring in the septum. The Bongo are not great cattle-breeders, but employ their time in agriculture, cultivating sorghum, tobacco, sesame and durra. The Bongo eat the fruits, tubers and fungi in which the country is rich, and almost every creature—bird, beast, insect and reptile, with the exception of the dog. Earth-eating is common among them. They are skilled in the smelting and working of iron. Iron forms the currency of the country, and is employed for all kinds of useful and ornamental purposes. Bongo spears, knives, rings, and other articles are frequently fashioned with great artistic elaboration. They have a variety of musical instruments—drums, stringed instruments, and horns—and they indulge in a vocal recitative which seems intended to imitate a succession of natural sounds. Marriage is by purchase; and a man is allowed to acquire three wives, but not more. Tattooing is partially practised. As regards burial, the corpse is bound in a crouching position with the knees drawn up to the chin ; men are placed in the grave with the face to the north, and women with the face to the south. The form of the grave consists of a niche in a vertical shaft. The tombs are fre quently ornamented with rough wooden figures representing the deceased. Of the immortality of the soul they have no defined notion ; and their only approach to a knowledge of a beneficent deity consists in a vague idea of luck. They have a most intense belief in a great variety of petty goblins and witches, which are essentially malignant. Arrows, spears and clubs form their weap ons, the first two distinguished by a multiplicity of barbs. Eu phorbia juice is used as a poison for the arrows. Shields are rare. Their language is musical, and abounds in the vowels o and a; its vocabulary of concrete terms is very rich, but the same word has often a great variety of meanings. The grammatical structure is simple.
See G. A. Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa (London, 1873) ; W. Junker, Travels in Africa (Eng. edit., London, 189o-1892).